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It’s too time consuming to write individual responses to arguments about Gail Dines, hysteria, and pornography so I’ll write a blog and then link. Please skip this if you are absolutely sick to death of the whole thing.

It is Gail Dines’ argument that boys and men who view pornography inevitably undergo a negative transformative process that entails total loss of respect for women, and a crippling inability to conduct satisfactory relationships. Through viewing porn, boys and men come to view women as the “cunts, whores, sluts and cumdumpsters” Gail Dines says pornographers say we really are.

Boys and men who view porn become nothing more than “amoral life support systems for an erect penis” that seeks relief in the most brutal, selfish and degrading manner possible with the cunts, whores, sluts and cumdumpsters who won’t expect intimate relationship and have no sexual needs of their own, or indeed any existence of their own outside of being the cunts, whores, sluts and cumdumpsters that Gail Dines says pornographers say we women are.

Boys and men, because they are born too stupid, ignorant, base, brainless and vile to do anything else, believe the pornographers and become what Gail Dines says the pornographers claim they really are, that is ALSSFTEPs.

According to Dines, we already have millions of ALSSFTEPs in the parts of the world with internet access, who are already behaving towards women as if we are CWSC, because those millions of boys and men who view porn on the internet have inevitably transmogrified into this undesirable, sexually dysfunctional human male. No exceptions. If you watch it, that’s what you’ll become.

Even if prior to subjecting themselves to the influence of pornographers boys and men exhibited no aggression, disgust or contempt towards women, they will inevitably do so after exposure, because the pornographers have revealed to them who they really are and in so doing, have liberated them into authenticity.

According to Dines, boys and men are incapable of distinguishing between reality and fantasy. That’s why so many of them also annoyingly labour under the delusion that they are really Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible.

But wait! There’s more! Men believe pornographers even more than they believe ordinary film makers because the pornographers get to them directly through their penis. This “powerful delivery system” over rides all male reason and morality, and renders them incapable of ethical behaviour. Even if they’ve been quite moral and well-behaved thus far. The nasty, nasty dick always rules in the end. OK?

In other words no matter what else you have learned in your male life prior to accessing porn, once the pornographers get to you it is as nothing, and all men become first blank slates, and then scaffolding for ill-intentioned stiffies. So parents, stop wasting your time instilling a moral compass into your boys. Once they google porn it’s all over for them, and you. You’ll be living with an ALSSFTEP who thinks the women around him are CWSCs and there is nothing you can do to prevent that. In fact, face it, especially you daft mothers. Your male children are inherently disturbed and its only a matter of time before porn strips away the semblance of decency you’ve deluded yourself into believing you’ve encouraged in them. Better to wring their necks at birth and keep a few corralled for breeding till we’ve established global sperm banks and can do away with them forever. And their stinking porn.

But no! some Dines defenders indignantly cry! That’s not what she’s saying! She’s saying porn portrays men like that, she isn’t saying men are like that! You are misrepresenting her!

OH. Really? REALLY? You mean Dines is saying porn is a STORY told by pornographers, and not reality? Dines is saying boys and men aren’t REALLY ALSSFTEPs, that’s just how pornographers portray them?

Then tell me, I beg you, Defenders of Dines, what is all the bloody fuss about? If Dines’ acknowledges men capable of distinguishing between fantasy and reality, if Dines’ acknowledges that the notion of men as ALSSFTEPs and women as CWSC is only a STORY told by pornographers and not actually what men and women are, then she has no fucking argument at all, and the whole anti porn thing is a gross beat up.

If that isn’t what she’s saying, then what she’d have us believe is that Gail Dines and those whom she persuades to her POV are the only people on the planet who know that porn is a story, and everyone else mistakes it for reality and adapts their behaviour accordingly so we can be as real as porn stars too, because after viewing porn there is nothing else we care about, and nothing else we want to be.

There is nasty porn available. There are women who participate. There are men who treat women badly. Nobody is saying otherwise. But that is a very far cry from the sweeping and insulting generalisations about all men, all women and all porn that Dines makes.

My question to Gail Dines and her defenders is: do you believe that all boys and men who watch porn are or will become amoral support systems for an erect penis?

If you answer no, then your rhetoric is hysterical. If you answer yes, your rhetoric is hysterical. Either way your argument is hysterical. QED.

I am not a Dines supporter. I think her black and white view of pornography ignores a lot of important elements about society in general and lacks rigour.

However, I am not convinced she is hysterical. I think her aim is to induce hysteria in her target audience, which I believe to be people who do not, or do not have the skills to, critically assess her arguments. Much like someone like Tony Abbott or Pauline Hanson when they act as if the world is ending because a handful of asylum seekers or Asian immigrants have arrived in Australia. If you sit down and think about it, you soon realise that it is not the case. But the aim of someone like Dines is to get you so enraged/disturbed/unhappy that you don’t do that. I think her position is a very considered and calculated one, designed to stop critical thought. Some people may still come to the same conclusions after thinking about the issues, but I suspect the large number of her supporters do not engage in such thinking. Perhaps this is my privilege showing?

Personally I have much more faith in the men in my life.

That aside, hysterical, shrill and emotional are most often applied to women and used as a way of dismissing our arguments. I think they also distract from the argument made by the person who uses those terms. Sometimes that is because there is not a coherent argument behind the terms, but sometimes there is and it is ignored in the shitstorm that ensues because someone said hysterical. I believe this is what happened to Juzzy Tribune, and he has since apologised for his use of the word – which I rate highly and think was a really positive thing for him to do.

Also dictionary definitions of words aren’t the only meanings of words. Sick used to mean something really good when I was a teenager, nice was bad, gay used to mean really happy, something weird was queer, and lame was someone who couldn’t walk. All these terms have a different meaning now which isn’t always reflected in the dictionary so they, like hysterical, have become loaded words and should be used with care. Claiming that the dictionary definition of a word is the only definition is, I think, wilfully ignoring the contexts in which it used and the ability of words to hurt.

I think in this brawl about the use of “hysteria” we’ve unintentionally exposed an on-going struggle for the control of meaning.

There is no fixed meaning in language, and in a situation of multiple meanings, individuals have the right to decide which one is relevant to their purpose. Hopefully we’ll all exercise consideration, however the fact that someone may be offended by our choice of meaning does not automatically infer that offense was intended, or that we have no right to use that word as we see fit.

Like many clinical terms, hysteria has been colloquialised to refer to both behaviour regarded as undesirable and peculiar to females, as well as the meaning I chose to use.

I’m taking a strong stand here, and saying that to me, hysterical is an entirely undisturbing term. I do not define it as derogatory to women, and I do not feel demeaned by the use of it. Anybody who calls me “hysterical” will be very disappointed in my lack of interest in taking up cudgels.

I realise many other women are offended and it is for them to take up cudgels if they so wish. I am not obliged by some imaginary spirit of sisterhood to join them in that battle. I fight many, many battles, every day of my life, and I reserve the right to choose them. I don’t demand other women join me, though they very often do.

Words hurt, I agree. I have no control over which words will hurt which people. What is most unfortunate in the shit storm over Juzzie’s piece is not that people went ballistic over what they considered to be his misogynist use of a word. The fact that the shit storm has largely blinded people to the content of his piece, which in my view was extremely important and rarely expressed by a man, is the real disappointment.

I have no admiration at all for the feminists who silenced Juzzy with their approbation. And will silence others. I wish he hadn’t apologised, but I understand why he did. The bullying he was subjected to is disgraceful.

In fact, how I feel today is you can call me hysterical any time you like, but don’t call me a feminist.

Just to be clear I’m not asking anyone to take up cudgels on my behalf, but I am asking them to be considerate when I say why something upsets/frustrates/annoys me. I don’t think this is unreasonable to request. Also, some people take this as an opportunity to use those very terms to hurt people intentionally. That sucks. That has also been happening in the aftermath of this ‘gender war’ as it has been called. I’m not sure why it is so bad for someone to ask someone else not to use a damaging word, even if you don’t see it as personally damaging. Isn’t it enough that someone has asked? I see a lot of people saying ‘but it doesn’t affect me personally’ but isn’t that the very definition of privilege?

Yes, the ‘bullying’ Juzzy went through was disgraceful. But so were some of the actions of his supporters which I note you seem to have no problem with. Sexist jokes about humourless feminists are okay now if they are about someone on the opposite side of an argument to you? Why no disgust about that? Ben Pobjie went on the attack and somehow he is okay while Tammi Jonas is the bad one here? I’m not saying anyone involved behaved well but to slam one side while ignoring the behaviour of the other is quite odd, no?

If someone asked me not to use the word hysteria in the context of this gender brawl I would politely refuse, while acknowledging their sensitivity. In other contexts I might take great care not to use the word. I will not be governed by language police in these decisions. I don’t deliberately use terms to cause distress in someone. It’s out of my control if others do, and I know they do, and if I’m present I’ll likely say something.

The privilege thing – a lot of things don’t concern me or upset me not because I’m privileged, but because I’ve learned that I do have a choice in how I receive and respond, and I am always giving power to another if I react to their provocation. I’ve also learned that insults say far more about the person hurling them at me than they do about me. It’s been quite a long road, learning these things, and I’m far from the end of it, but its a road open to anyone who wants to travel it. I would far rather encourage a woman onto this road than collude in a mutual fantasy that we have control over language and its use as a medium for insult and offense.

I don’t think Tammi Jonas is the bad one here, or is bad anywhere and in any way. I haven’t engaged with Pjobie because I’m not arguing about his article, I’m concerned with Juzzy’s situation. I’m not arguing about sexist jokes. Other people have approached it from the perspective you claim I’m neglecting, and I’m dealing with this one. I don’t have to make arguments other people think I should be making. I only have to make the ones I feel I should be making.

“The privilege thing – a lot of things don’t concern me or upset me not because I’m privileged, but because I’ve learned that I do have a choice in how I receive and respond, and I am always giving power to another if I react to their provocation. I’ve also learned that insults say far more about the person hurling them at me than they do about me. It’s been quite a long road, learning these things, and I’m far from the end of it, but its a road open to anyone who wants to travel it. I would far rather encourage a woman onto this road than collude in a mutual fantasy that we have control over language and its use as a medium for insult and offense.”

Why don’t we, as a society, teach our boys this? I too have been taught this, but sometimes I stop in the middle of the road and make a racket because some men have been taught the exact opposite of this and call my hysterical when I try to argue, as a way of ignoring my arguments. Many of the people arguing with Juzzy on this issue are women who have been silenced by men (not necessarily Juzzy, I think he was just the one on the day who used the term and got the avalanche) calling them hysterical. I’m glad it’s not your lived experience, because it is really fucking annoying especially when it happens time and time again.

Encouraging women onto this road, while easier, doesn’t do anything to encourage more men onto the road, it just leads them to expect that women should all do this. I think a bit of a shakeup every now and again does them good, and that’s why I’m glad Juzzy apologised because it meant that he has thought about what his careless use of a slur did. He didn’t mean to be misogynist, and I don’t believe that he intentionally was, but the result was still misogynist. I think he deserved to be called on it. I don’t think anyone deserved the shit storm that eventuated, but there comes a time when a whole lot of people are going to stop on that road and say ‘that is it, I’m sick of this shit and today is the day I’m yelling about it’.

I didn’t mean to say I’ve got it all sorted, because I haven’t by a long shot. I’ve been in the place where it was impossible for me to discriminate between someone who means me harm and someone who doesn’t, and its scary. I think we have to learn to do that, though, to have any kind of a life.

I think my what some accusatively call “protective” attitude to men may stem from having brought boy babies into the world and raised them. I can’t stereotype men. I’d be dehmunanizing my own children, not to mention the men I love. And I can’t say, yes all the men except my men are fuckers of one kind or another. That is a position of such laughable dishonesty that I can’t take it seriously when a woman adopts it. Dines has a son and is married I think. So where does she position her men when she talks about men as she does? As exceptions, because they are her men? It’s offensive as well to other women, who can only conclude they haven’t been as fortunate as her and have got stuck with the fuckers, because if there’s so many millions of them somebody’s stuck with them and it doesn’t appear to be MTR, Dines et al.

And it is sooo possible to tackle the issues of violence both in and outside of porn without this kind of raving. On a practical level, we have laws in place that we need to prosecute criminal porn acts. We need better policing, better assistance for women who want to get out of the industry, and more specialised policing units to deal with criminal internet porn and child porn. We don’t need this moral panic stuff and it is so divisive.

And yes, I could have cheerfully walloped Bob Ellis for his misogynist crap last week. It’s demoralising and wearing to keep coming up against it. And I’m angry at the misogyny of the MSM towards Gillard. It’s disgusting and muddies the waters.

This is marvellous work, from Mindy and Jennifer.
A thought, porn incites sexual arousal. How did the species get to procreate before porn?
Clue- think young people, high hormone levels, etc, etc, in times when life expectancy was short.
Porn and abuse are symptoms of a failure of alignment between what has been the basic human condition induced through the triumph of technos over a matter of mere centuries (against billions of years in the making), perhaps think industrialisation, class and sexual divisons of labour, people movements and urbanisation. With change has come upheavel and violence, unless history comes up with a way for things to cool off and allow humanity to assimilate change, a bit of porn will be neither here nor there, too manypeople have already ben damaged by far deeper and more complex factors than a rogue copy of Playboy.
In that case we cant blame Dines and co for also trying to make sense of things, we can see it a s part of a conversation about what to do for the future. Are her and her friends so wrong to plead for a little more patience and respect, isnt this part of an aspiration toward a better world and how and by what conditions it might function?
OTH, people have an adaptive capacity, our po-mo world is as much a cognitive jungle as the Amazon and like the Yanomami, we learn to negotiate our way through our environment, but I dont think there is yet a global silver bullet for the status quo, lots, lots more work to be done yet.
We can easily start by asking the Censorites to in turn respect our privacy by developing some thing more apt for filtering out the toxic from the recreational, which itself requires more thought as to human nature, condition, society etc?

Then the are those erect penises pressed flat-tack through a plaster or gyprock wall, could be bessa block or simple cement render. Anyway not a person in sight, You wonder if those men are so shy that a wall might be the closest they will come to a human partner. Men flock to those walls by the millions. It’s called ‘Glory Hole’. I am not aware of women doing the same, there would be physical limitations. The glory Hole is supposed to have a person on the other side but the consumer of this porn can’t see anything much more than this wall to which their face is pressed against. The wall might have a supporting pink painted colour but that’s about it.
Of course something is wrapped around the erect penis on the other side of the wall to give friction but that could be a mouth (hoped for) as well as anything a bit warm or moist. (pre-heated chicken thighs)
Anyway, this would do away with Dines et all that consumers of porn become insensitive or traitors to women. Would Gail Dines like to ban gyprock sheeting? The mind boggles.

What is most unfortunate in the shit storm over Juzzie’s piece is not that people went ballistic over what they considered to be his misogynist use of a word. The fact that the shit storm has largely blinded people to the content of his piece, which in my view was extremely important and rarely expressed by a man, is the real disappointment.

Disappointing that all that time and energy didn’t go into debating a thoughtful and important exploration of pornography by a man.

“…do you believe that all boys and men who watch porn are or will become amoral support systems for an erect penis?”

No. I do not believe this is true even though I will tell you -and anyone else that will listen- that porn is an unhealthy and potentially damaging activity for the male members of our species. Here’s why I believe this;

The porn industry is no more or less immoral then those industries that sell alcohol, mood altering drugs, sugar and fatty foods in that the product they sell is dangerous it’s ultimately up to the person who uses it as to whether it’s immoral or not.

For the benefit of ‘Find Porn. Destroy Porn’ telling us – and anyone who is prepared to listen – that porn is an “… unhealthy and damaging activity for the MALE members of our species” [My CAPS], let me repeat what I published on this blog back in December: “This from Gail Dines, in the ‘Myth of Free Porn’ article: ‘In reality, much of the content comes from … paid sites, and acts as teasers to get the guy interested so that they can then “monetize” the free porn by diverting him to paid sites.’ Gail, why single out men for this honorable mention in your piece? Who is this ‘guy’? 1 of 3 visitors to all adult websites are women, according to ‘Internet Filter Review’ – a non porn industry aligned resource [Actually, it is a Christian study aligned with a major anti-porn movement in the USA, in case you wish to question the source. Heaven forbid THEY would make it up]. Further, according to the study, 1 in 8 of women admit to accessing porn at work. This just shows the immediate bias this ‘authority’, Gail Dines, showers upon us. Oh dear, another man hater. Ho hum. It insinuates that men are bad, perverted and singularly exploitative of women. The viewers are evil. The producers are evil. The world is an evil place. Guess what, lady. I’m a girl. And I love a bit of porn occasionally. I have dozens and dozens of independent, educated female friends – and male friends – who enjoy a bit of titillation and fantasy. I guess we’re all going to Hell. I am sick to death of the Christian lobbyists and goody two shoes experts telling us that the sisterhood – which includes me – are being exploited. Please! Buy some software to save yourself from temptation and eternal damnation, but leave the rest of us alone. The only thing I can thank Gail Dines for today is indirectly introducing me to the enlightened Dr Jennifer Wilson and her moderate, intelligent views on this subject.” Please humour me here, ‘Destroy Porn’. Why do you single out men as those being harmed? Are you even conscious of your demonstrable bias? As a woman, am I running a strong risk of being harmed by my viewing habits? I’m going to go way out on a limb here, but I think that perhaps you have more issues with men in general … than you do pornography. Seek help! Jodie

Oh my god, you are amazing. Your style of writing is hilarious and you consistently make good points.

Anyway, speaking of porn, it annoys me to hear people complain that porn demeans people. That’s what I love about porn; demeaning people gets me off. And how about that Feisty Reisty? She’s a looker. Gotta love a woman with some fight in her.

As a simple response to find & destroy, many of your sources seem to be heavily biased toward your position. This doesn’t necessarily make you wrong, I understand but it would strengthen your argument to dig deeper, verify the academic sources of the clearly biased publications and use them to support you, if they are indeed academic and verifiable. Additionally, the points you credit to more neutral and academic sources are less conclusive. For example, I would imagine that engaging in any sort of online activity for 11 hours per week as opposed to 1 would indicate less interest a specific real life partner to begin with. This ties in with the divorce research you mention. I would tend to believe that Facebook is as significant a factor in divorce proceedings as online pornography, both an issue of time and dedication to computers versus real romantic partners. Finally, in reference to the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburg article which contends that teens who watch pornography are 500% more likely to engage in multiple person sex, I would say that this infers correlation but not causation. It would be just as easy to conclude that teens who enjoy multiple person sex are 500% more likely to enjoy viewing pornography.

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[…] gone to the pornification dogs, breeding boys who become (according to her colleague Gail Dines) “amoral life support systems for an erect penis” and girls who are inevitably forced into exploitative sex long before they are ready, the […]